/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9542817
Solar and wind will NEVER provide the baseload required to mine more minerals for making solar panels and wind turbines, which means they will result in the complete collapse of civilisation as we know it if they're relied upon extensively by industry (residential is fine).

It's thermodynamics 101. Every source of energy has begotten the next highest energy-dense material.

>no source (human metabolism)
>wood
>coal and whale oil
>petrochemicals
>nuclear
>[science-fiction territory]

If you take one step backwards down that list (because you've exhausted or abandoned your current step without moving forward), then you will literally never have the baseload required to jump two steps forward.

Anyone who's anti-nuclear can't think in deep time. And it's not even particularly deep.

Solar and wind are too niche.

>>9542817
>BLOWN
indeed

>>9542852
>It's thermodynamics 101. Every source of energy has begotten the next highest energy-dense material.
this had better be b8

Yup, the biggest problem around nuclear is the FUD.
However, I still want money to go into the better nuclear technologies rather than building more LWR/BWRs.

>>9542895
>watch me smelt this iron with my solar panel battery pack

>>9542899
Australia actually built solar and battery packs to run a steel mill.

>>9542914
You mean Elon's battery in Adelaide? Link?

>>9542915
A poo in loo did it.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/31/whyalla-steelworks-to-be-powered-by-700m-solar-battery-and-pumped-hydro-project

>>9542916
They still use coal for smelting.

>The iron-making department incorporates the blast furnace, coke ovens and the power and services departments of the Whyalla steelworks. Molten iron is supplied from here to the BOS for manufacture into steel. Coke is produced on site from coal supplied to the plant from Newcastle or Port Kembla and ships are loaded with iron ore for shipment from Whyalla's port.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whyalla_Steelworks

>>9542852
>If you take one step backwards down that list (because you've exhausted or abandoned your current step without moving forward), then you will literally never have the baseload required to jump two steps forward.

Mobility is going to drive things now. It's usually cheaper and faster to set up a grid of panels in a remote area than it is to connect said remote area to a used power grid or to build a plant out there.

>>9542922
While that's true, a lot of people are leaving remote areas to head to urban areas.

I don't believe pure solar (or wind + solar) is the way forward. I also don't believe pure nuclear is the way forward. Having several different clean production technologies at the same time is not a bad thing, the problem is that producing solar and wind technologies requires a lot of energy, which is mostly coming from fossil fuels, and it creates a lot of waste which needs to be dealt with properly.

Add to that solar panels have a 15 to 20 year life, it just doesn't make sense to push for solar to become one of the major energy production sources. You would be in a constant state of replacing panels. It could even get to a point where panels are failing faster than they're being produced. It's just not a model that makes sense.

*appoints unelected bureaucracy to kill your industry*

your move nuclear

>>9542896
The #1 and only problem is that the bureaucracy of the NRC doesn't let them build new power plants and will sabotage any new development with their bureaucratic faggotry
Same as always happens when you give bureaucrats & liberals absolute power over something.

>>9542936
>have a 15 to 20 year life
that will probably improve in the future

>>9542852
Human metabolism uses much more energy dense compounds than a tree does. Lipids provide more twice the amount of energy for cellular respiration than sugars do and plants simply cannot compete with the amount of lipids an animal can store as most of their energy is locked in starch.

>>9543017
Feel free to burn humans for useful energy production then.

>>9543023
Well that's not unfeasible.

>>9543001
It will, but that's still a massively short cycle for everything we are putting in now.

>>9543001
Actually, not to argue the point itself but more the trend, products, even industrial ones, tend to reduce their life expectancy.
We probably have the technology to build machines lasting decades or more but this capability is often balance to the need to keep the producing firm replacing.maintaining the machine park.

>>9542817
If you go 100% nuclear, you need to construct most reactors in a way so they can apply their energy output to demand. This makes them less efficient, and thus not so cheap anymore. France, which is the only country where nuclear is the primary source of energy (that I know of), has that problem. Their nuclear reactors are working on 75% of their capacity on average. So the electricity and energy they produce basically isn't that cheap anymore. Another issue France has that during the hottest summer months they are having issues with cooling of the reactors, because there isn't enough water nearby anymore. This is another issue: You need huge water supplies to cool reactors. So for example in California, you can only build them in big numbers near the coast. Arizona or New Mexico don't have a coast, so they can't build many nuclear reactors.

If every country went 100% nuclear you would also run out of Uranium pretty quickly (50-100 years) and you would produce huge amounts of radioactive waste.

All in all, nuclear is best used as a "basic work horse" that provides the first 15-20% of the energy mix. The bigger the percentage becomes, the more issues you are going to face.

>>9543048
That's really only a problem with the water reactor type nuclear.
There are other types that could be implemented, but funding isn't really there to complete the technologies and bring them to market, which is the problem.
Faith has been lost in nuclear which has retarded the advancement to better nuclear tech.

>>9543062
No, you'd still have all the other issues with all other types of reactors.

France is btw only covering the coast of building and operating the nuclear reactors during their lifetime, and that barely so. They are not going to cover the nuclear waste management and dismantling the reactor. For 58 reactors that going to be 20-30 billion alone of additional cost.

To cover absoluetely everything, they would need to raise the prices so much, that they are barely cheaper than renewables.

>>9542852
Are you telling me you think a solar panel doesn't produce more energy during its lifetime, that went into producing, transporting, and installing it? If you think that, you are literally retarded.

>>9543104
Liquid salt reactors would have a lot less problems, once ready, including less radioactive waste which stays radioactive for a much shorter time, incredibly resistant to meltdown and can use waste from current plants as fuel.

>>9543124
They also produce Ur233 en masse so they will never happen.

>>9542920
coke is used as a reducing agent in iron smelting, you brainlet. it's not in there to provide heat; it's added in for its chemical properties.

>>9543141
reuse it

>>9543048
>Because some reactors can't run at 100% this means you can't build nuclear

Typical nonsensical "maintain status quo" post

Won't matter. The energy debate became political when monied interests got involved. Unless a radical change happens in left wing parties. We will burn fossil fuels for another century or two. So we can build massive surpluses of inefficiemt solar, wind, and batteries.

>>9545033
Nixon created the NRC that stopped nuclear power in the USA
It's not "left wing parties" that prevent it

>>9545053
Nixon was a progressive old style Republican.

Carter had his hand in it too. The nuclear moratorium after 3 mile.

Then Reagan's new republicans and old blue collar union democrats did the coal mine owners' bidding.

Bush sr and the almighty petrodollar. Plus his oil cronies.

>>9545065
And now oil is bigger than ever
Who wants to rock that boat? Really all it would take is new leadership at the NRC and you would see a nuclear renaissance

>>9542852
Solar cells are made largely from sand. Also pic related

>>9544801
We can make steel via molten oxide electrolysis. We don't need to carry out the reduction chemically.

>>9544859
You can, but they won't be really that cost effective anymore.

France btw is also going to close 17 nuclear reactors until 2025 and is going to switch to wind, water and solar.

>>9542852
>no source (human metabolism)
Wrong and it is the most efficient system in existence.
Read a book please.
This is the state of sci a bunch of high schoolers that jerk off to youtube celebs and play smart.

>>9545033
It became political far before that, energy was a public utility after all and now that environmentalists decided that solar is the only way to go and the only thing that really matters is destroying Exxon mobile and other fossil fuels and fearmongering about nuclear energy and global warming means this particular area of the economy is completely politicized and fucked. The same goes for healthcare. I still this fossil fuel are basically essential you can mostly prevent their impact through carbon sequestration but I think uncertainty is keeping them from doing anything.

>>9545355
yes, and? that doesn't relate to the point I was addressing.
(also, you still have to have a reducing agent somewhere in the system; reduction cannot be decoupled from oxidation. all resorting to electrolysis does is separate them in space.)